Blowing the whistle

StreetNet International held a campaigns meeting in cooperation with the United Workers Centre (CUT) Colombia and the General Union of Informal Workers (UGTI) in Bogota, Colombia on 21st May. The meeting agreed to give their full support for the letter sent to FIFA, written by the CUT-Brazil, StreetNet and the Gaspar Garcia Centre for Human Rights, calling on FIFA to respect the rights of street vendors. They also agreed that each organisation would send a copy of the letter to FIFA to their respective National Federations of Football and to call for a meeting to put forward their concerns. During the meeting, the participants looked at the Solidar website, and were invited to sign the petition against FIFA. They also blew the whistle at Sepp Blatter! We think that the whistling was so loud it must have been heard in Zurich!

There were 17 organisations present at the meeting, from 13 countries in Latin America, Europe, Africa and Asia.

The demands to FIFA are:

That FIFA encourages the municipal authorities to use existing or establish new bargaining forums to dialogue with the representative organisations of all the informal workers in the host cities;

That within the Fan Miles around the Stadiums and in the Fan Parks, 50% of the stands are reserved for local informal traders who sell typical handicrafts, food and drink from the region.

That appropriate for informal trade in each municipality are developed in a consultative manner;

The aim of StreetNet is to promote the exchange of information and ideas on critical issues facing street vendors, market vendors and hawkers (i.e. mobile vendors) and on practical organizing and advocacy strategies.